Emergency Vehicle Satellite Antenna Based on Aviation
Starling Advanced Communications is taking the knowledge it gained from developing aviation satellite antennas and converting that for use on emergency medical services and homeland security vehicles, said Jacob Keret, vice president of marketing and sales. “We took advantage of the coherent multi-panel antenna (CoMPATM) technology and leveraged it for the land mobile market,” Keret said in an interview. The new antennas, named StarCar, will be introduced at next month’s Satellite 2009, he said.
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StarCar is Starling’s first foray into the traditional satellite market, Keret said. Until now the company has been focusing on the aviation market, he said. Starling’s airplane satellite antennas are used by Panasonic and EMS Technologies for their in-flight entertainment systems, he said.
StarCar links to Ku-band satellites and isn’t designed for private vehicles, Keret said. StarCar is not a receive-only device like those used for backseat video, he said: “This product is for the high-end. It costs more than a car.”
StarCar is a self-contained antenna system with all of the radio-frequency technology and electronics housed directly on the antenna. It’s easy to install on a vehicle, much easier than the airplane version, Keret said. Starling has potential partners for StarCar in the U.S. and China, he said, without elaborating.
Starling envisions its satellite antennas being installed on trains but Keret acknowledged it would have to be paired with a Wi-Fi or WiMAX system to compensate for the lack of a line-of-site to the satellite. While trains are beginning to install broadband systems, Starling doesn’t have a customer in that market, he said.
A main investor in Starling, Rafael Development Corp., is owned by the Israeli Ministry of Defense but Keret said Starling isn’t focusing on the military market. “We are not pursuing the military market, though the military can use and is using commercial products,” he said.
Satellite 2009 will be a good place to show the satellite market that its proven technology has other uses, Keret said. Starling doesn’t expect to stop with the introduction of StarCar, he said. “We are building Starling as a development and design house for sophisticated satellite antenna systems,” he said. There’s “a demand” for flat-panel antennas, he added.